Biased Information In My Face

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Our YMCA has recently changed to Precor equipment and updated the treadmills, elliptical trainers, and stationery bikes. Each of them have a TV screen. Yesterday I really enjoyed my run while watching the Westminister Dog Show rerun. Today I did a 10 minute elliptical training warm up before doing my personal training strength session. I have tried the bikes, too.

On the old equipment you could watch the closed caption TVs, but they were in the background. Now they are right in your face and I have mixed feeling about them:
I shouldn't act like I don't watch TV at home, because I do. But I rarely sit and watch it. I'm cleaning house or exercising or Sparking while it is on. I rarely give it my full attention, and when my hubby is watching, he regularly records what he wants to see and then fast forwards through the commercials. So I haven't paid attention to commercials much recently until the new cardio equipment arrived at the gym.

Some of the commercials have me shaking my head. Two of the most flagrant were:

1. A Multi-grain Cheerios ad says that people who eat more whole grains weigh less, when their multi-grain cereal has a lot more sugar in it than the regular Cheerios. Regular Cheerios are 100 calories and 1 gram of sugar for a cup, if I remember right. Multigrain Cheerios are 3/4 of a cup for a serving and the same or more calories and several times the sugar.

2. Centrum vitamins advertise that their vitamins were used in a recently released study as if that is some big accomplishment. I remember reading here on SP that the study determined no benefit to taking the vitamins.

It makes me extra thankful that SparkPeople exists to give us unbiased information about products we use to improve our health and fitness. Thanks, SparkPeople!!

Has anyone figured out how much we are paying to have all those commercials beamed into our homes through the cable and internet connections? To say nothing of my cell phone. I have 4 ads waiting for me in my go phone from a satellite provider. If I answer them, I have to pay for phone usage that day.

Love that you look between the lies to percieve the lies in commercials.

Not health related, but one of my favorites to hate are car commercials. There is just too much to list. But, one of the latest favorites is:

"Buy a new car and we will pay off your loan on your old car and lower your current car payments, if we can come to terms!" Well, duh. You can marry my daughter. I will give you the mortgage to my home, and all my personal property - "If we can come to terms". This commercial airs locally every day in Orlando, FL

And how about - "we guarantee payments as low as 150 dollars a month" Duh, again. How much do I have to put down? They might as well say "payments of 25 cents a month" Of course - it depends on the down payment - is the upspoken truth.

I am so used to 'Tuning Out' the wild Health Claims on Commercials that I barely notice them even when I am watching them with ear phones plugged in on the Exercise Machine ( My Gym also has some Precor Equipment).

The funniest thing is that I will go much longer than I plan to on the Treadmill or Bike in order to watch the end of a True Crime Mystery/Murder Story -- Something I seldom ever watch at home, LOL!!!

how observant! sometimes i record a show to watch while on my elliptical, and forward through the ads, too. On FB, when they put up an ad, I often click it off and put the reason as "misleading" - especially all those folks who try to use Dr. Oz's name without being authorized. Best of all for me is to put on my favorite Pandora music station and move to the beat. Helps me go farther than I would have otherwise.

I'm not a huge tv watcher, either (I use dvr for the news and a few fave shows) but I do like it at the gym as it makes an hour fly by- I channel surf while changing up the intensity on whatever equipment I'm on that day.Commercials are ridiculous!

I don't think I could actually get a good workout if there was a tv in my face. I might glance at the tv way across the room from time to time but it's nice to not have those distractions. My workout time is for me and and my sweat.

I don't watch TV except at my Mom's then my step dad's favorite is the news or America's Funniest Videos (which I don't mind) but I am usually Sparking or reading instead of watching. Machines with TV's will never happen in the public facilities I frequent, and thats a good thing. I prefer rousing workout music myself. I have always heard how Cheerios really was the best choice for a cereal, its my brother's favorite and the only healthy thing he eats. I liked the sugar drenched shreddies myself, and at leat loved frozen blueberries on them -they made the milk freeze which was neat. I will certainly never pay any attention to advertising and as for research articles -always look to see who helped to fund them..You must look at most things with a jaded eye these days. And it always seems they keep changing their minds about whats good and what isn't as well. Way to go with the exercise and enjoy the new machines!

Vitamins can sometimes help with a lacking here or there but I agree a daily regiment is not needed as they preach for sure. So true on the commercials ..The people making them most times know very little about the products.